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Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

Okay, so let's start with the Chipset update.

1) What exactly is that updating? It's not the BIOS, so then what is it/what does it do? I just noticed the "Intel" part of the description, so I'm guessing this has to do with how the mobo communicates/functions with the CPU?

2) Am I correct that I should be downloading "Version 9.3.0.1021"?

3) Presumably I just open/execute whatever the download is and let it do its thing?

Regarding WinXP and an old hard drive... I'm sure it exists... somewhere (maybe), but the short answer is essentially "no". I think if my copy still exists its buried somewhere in the basement (which, with my basement, means its basically unaccessible without a lot of work and searching).

Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

I'd probably just install all of the updates myself to be up to date if nothing else... but that 'firmware' update they mention would be a priority if I was having an issue like your's. I'm a little curious about that one...

Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.

------

"A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, thatís teamwork."

Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

Regarding the Firmware update, I'm intrigued as well because it mentions better Windows 8 compatibility. But it also says to, before updating, make sure the Intel Management Interface Driver is installed. Well, I don't recall doing that, so I'm assuming it is/was NOT installed by default out of the box? I'll look at the manual.

Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

1) What exactly is that updating? It's not the BIOS, so then what is it/what does it do? I just noticed the "Intel" part of the description, so I'm guessing this has to do with how the mobo communicates/functions with the CPU?

Never ask how the sausage is made...

2) Am I correct that I should be downloading "Version 9.3.0.1021"?

Yes

3) Presumably I just open/execute whatever the download is and let it do its thing?

Yes

Regarding WinXP and an old hard drive... I'm sure it exists... somewhere (maybe), but the short answer is essentially "no". I think if my copy still exists its buried somewhere in the basement (which, with my basement, means its basically unaccessible without a lot of work and searching).

Pretty sure what Sandman was cooking up was you booting into WinXP and updating the BIOS from the Win loader program (since you said there was a Win program for flashing BIOS but not a 64bit version...

Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.

------

"A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, thatís teamwork."

Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

Regarding the Firmware update, I'm intrigued as well because it mentions better Windows 8 compatibility. But it also says to, before updating, make sure the Intel Management Interface Driver is installed. Well, I don't recall doing that, so I'm assuming it is/was NOT installed by default out of the box? I'll look at the manual.

I'm thinking that drivers might install with the installer and will give you that option. It's just telling you to chose the driver install before the firmware install.

Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.

------

"A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, thatís teamwork."

Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

That I'm not surprised by. The chipsets are for improved compatibility once you get into the OS.

"Nobody wants to play against Tyler Hansbrough NO BODY!" ~ Frank Vogel

"And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen. "
Want your own "Just Say No to Kamen" from @mkroeger pic? http://twitpic.com/a3hmca

Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

Okay. Well, in that case, why would they warn me to make sure I have the earlier version installed first if/when the update also includes the earlier version? Makes me think it will NOT do that, you know?

Any alternative means to finding out if I already have it installed or not? I didn't see a reference to it in the Table of Contents of my mobo manual.

Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

In the meantime, I'm running through and updating the other stuff like audio drivers, VGA, LAN, etc.

Skip the VGA driver. YOu don't need it since you are using a discrete graphics card.

"Nobody wants to play against Tyler Hansbrough NO BODY!" ~ Frank Vogel

"And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen. "
Want your own "Just Say No to Kamen" from @mkroeger pic? http://twitpic.com/a3hmca

Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

I'm thinking it will have an -option- to install those drivers. So if this is your first firmware update then you will need to take that option and install them. OTOH, if you've installed a previous firmware update then you can skip the driver install and just do the firmware install.

In either case, I don't think it would bulldoze right thru the install without you either seeing you need to cancel or seeing a tick box to install the drivers, or a link to go DL them...

Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.

------

"A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, thatís teamwork."

Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

Not trying to be rude or anything, but why didn't you just buy a PC? Some of these questions are easy answers and you are building your own.

Buying a PC is honestly no fun. Building on the other hand, gives a sense of accomplishment when you get it all stabilized. Plus you save some money and theres no preloaded crapware.

"Nobody wants to play against Tyler Hansbrough NO BODY!" ~ Frank Vogel

"And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen. "
Want your own "Just Say No to Kamen" from @mkroeger pic? http://twitpic.com/a3hmca

Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

Not trying to be rude or anything, but why didn't you just buy a PC? Some of these questions are easy answers and you are building your own.

They may be easy answers to someone with more experience, but I like to be extra sure of something when there's risk involved, so rather than just guess I ask. Now I know, and next time I won't have to ask again. That's how one learns and grows.

Why did I build it? Because I wanted to save money, I wanted to try, and I felt like I had enough knowledge/experience to do it with (as needed) the aid of the Internet filling in the gaps, which is proving to be the case, and in the end I now have my assembled, working PC weeks earlier than I would have gotten it had I waited for a more expensive assembly. That's why.

And in some cases, I think I know the answers to the questions, but I'd be a fool to just move forward on assumptions and risk screwing things up when I could be double checking and asking people who clearly know more than me, and they have been generous enough to answer. I'm being cautious and I'm trying to learn.

Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

In the meantime, I resolved getting this old laser printer to get detected and to function. It's actually two cables in between the printer and the PC; a parallel-to-USB running out of the printer, then a USB extension cable to run the needed length of the room because they're not that close together. At first I was just plugging in the extension cord, but Windows just recognized the cord and the adapter. But once I left it plugged in, then unplugged where the two cables meet, then plugged them back together, it seemed to 'extend its search' on to the printer itself, and immediately recognized it. I also had the generic HP drivers still installed from the other day, so that may have helped in recognizing it so quickly as well.

Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

By the way, after installing a couple of the SATA updates, Windows booted but quickly crashed due to error 'DRIVER_CORRUPTED_EXPOOL'. Each time, Windows seemed to collect some error information (which took a few seconds, and it included a percentage of progress that quickly ran up to 100%), then the PC would restart, and then it would be fine. But I thought it was strange that drivers straight from ASUS would do this. But it seems to be fine now.

Re: Building my new PC - help needed!

Well, I had a moment of boldness and decided "let's do it".

I updated the BIOS to the most recent version using EZ Flash 2. Formatted an old thumb drive (128MB - a mammoth, I know ) in FAT32, put the CAP file on it, rebooted, went into BIOS, ran EZ Flash 2, it found it right away, and it worked.

Better yet? My PC booted much, much faster than before.

Possibly important note for anyone who may use this thread as reference for their own adventures: While googling about updating the BIOS, someone mentioned that you should right click the BIOS update file and click properties, and see if you need to have Windows unblock the file, which in my case I did do before attempting to use this file for the update. Had I not done that, it's quite possible this would not have worked, so be on the lookout for that!